Turkey has many expatriate communities abroad, as well as communities of various origins, whose members reside within its borders and feel connected to other states or regions. Many of these communities have been ignored or eyed with suspicion by the modern Turkish nation-state since its inception in the 1920s. It is only recently that Turkey has “discovered” its people abroad and the diaspora communities within, a discovery that appears to be causally connected with Turkey’s rising ambitions and ‘soft power’ capabilities. Under the Justice and Development Party, efforts for a concerted diaspora policy have reached a peak with the creation of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities in 2010. This report deals with the Presidency, its goals and capacities, its role within the larger context of Turkey’s foreign policy and its desired and actual impacts on Turkey’s diaspora communities.

* Kerem Öktem is Mercator-IPC Fellow at Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University and Research Fellow at the European Studies Centre, University of Oxford. In September 2014, he will assume the Professorial Chair for Southeast European and Turkish Studies at the University of Graz, Austria